1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, a control method therefor, and a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Nowadays, business machines (image forming apparatuses) having high power-saving efficiency are demanded in offices. Therefore, in addition to an on/off operation of the image forming apparatus and a power-saving mode over the entire image forming apparatus, a multifunction peripheral (MFP) has been conceived that can reduce an effective power by turning off a power source of a part that is not used even in a stand-by state.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-201986 discusses power saving by turning off the power source of a fixing unit or a sheet-feeding system during facsimile receiving operation. While a printer is in printing operation, each unit of the apparatus is controlled to save the power according to a selected application function, For example, the power is saved by turning off the power source of an operation panel and an image scanner unit.
It can be conceived that, to obtain high power-saving efficiency in the image forming apparatus, the power source of devices such as a printer and a scanner are turned on when the devices are used, and turned off right after the devices are finished to be used.
However, since some devices take long time to perform initialization processing after the power source is turned on, each time a user uses an arbitrary function, a waiting time is generated. In other words, for such a user who often uses the device taking long time to perform initialization, user responsiveness of the image forming apparatus when the apparatus is started to be used is drastically decreased.
Such a situation is also a problem, which similarly occurs by factors such as screen setting to be performed on the image forming apparatus by the user, an authority for selecting the function set by the user, and history of functions used in the image forming apparatus by the authenticated user. In other words, in the situation as described above, only after a controller of the image forming apparatus is recovered, the power is started to be supplied to the device requested by the user, and thus the waiting time of the user is generated. Further, if all the functions are set to be ready to be performed independently from the user's request, the power needs to be supplied to the all of the devices. Thus, the power is wastefully consumed for an unnecessary function.